forum.freeciv.org

I've been playing Freeciv a lot recently, and some things are starting to bug me. Not necessarily about the gameplay. More about the forms of government.

For example, Freeciv (Civ) maintains that a democratic state doesn't suffer from any corruption. This is utterly unrealistic. Both politics and economy in democratic states suffer a substantial degree of corruption IRL. It is quite common for democratic policymakers to be influenced by lobbyists. This is official corruption. Car manufacturers in democratic states currently suffer a huge crisis because they manipulated their cars in order to make them look like they're less dirty than they actually are. The Panama Papers just showed us how corrupt the money elite is around the world, including in democratic states. I mean, half the tax havens around the world are in Europe. Companies lie and obscure about problems in nuclear reactors, sometimes aided by the state that should control them. Banks crash because of risky business practices and have to be bailed out by taxpayers but the bosses get away scotch free. There are many, many examples of corruption in real life democracies throughout history. I would argue democracies have as much corruption as any other type of government. Probably more because they have more rich people than e.g. North Korea, thus more tax evasion. Yet Civ portrays democracy as this squeaky-clean ideal state with no corruption.

It is also cemented in the Civ ruleset that democracies don't like going to war. Two citizens get unhappy for each field unit. This is, again, preposterous when you look at the history of America's warfare in the last 30 years. Many of the western democracies have been almost constantly at war and most citizens don't care. Only tiny minorities actively protest against wars anymore. American or European citizens have no problem going to war IRL.

Then there is the mechanic of growing cities by rapture, which is only possible in Republic and Democracy. There is no link between democracy as a political system and cities magically growing. Cities grow mostly because jobs move from the countryside into cities, and people follow. Nothing to do with democracy or republic. Democracy is well and good but doesn't automatically create jobs in cities.

It seems like the original authors of Civ had a skewed worldview or were simply quite biased when it comes to the portrayal of forms of government.

It could even be argued that the governments are in the wrong place on the tech tree. Democracy is a word from ancient Greece. The Greek city-states around 2600 years ago used a "democratic" system. Republic is a Roman word - res publica, the state as a public institution. The Romans were way later than the Greek. On the other hand, in some parts of Europe, communism came before democracy but after republic. In other parts, democracy came before republic (Thing democracy in Germanic lands.) So the Civ tech tree really depicts a very American-centric world view. I would say the same goes for all of the game. Granted, it has to settle on one way of doing it, or alternatively differentiate more between forms of government.

You might say, "it's only a game." Yes, correct. There have to be simplifications and limitations. I just think that in new rulesets, Freeciv developers should think about balancing this stuff better. Democracy having no corruption just seems unreal. Democratic economy and politics goes haywire all by itself all the time. Maybe there should be semi-random events - "your banks crashed and you have to save them", "your citzens put all their money into a tax haven", "your caravan decided to cheat with the quality of its goods", "your advisors sold 5 bomber planes to your communist rival and kept the money", "your diplomats accidentally created a terrorist organisation"... all this stuff does happen in real democracies.

Democracies getting more trade than communism is probably realistic. Yes, democracies should have lots of money and lots of research. But they should also leak money, to be honest. Real democracies leak money like hell. They also have an unfortunate tendency to turn into despotism by democratically electing a dictator. There are enough examples of this in history. Communist states, on the other hand, might have to deal with unrest if the neighbouring democracy produces too much luxury (this is historical as well, East Germany and West Germany are an example - people from the communist East had access to Western radio and TV.) People tend to want the same luxury as their neighbours. Cities might spontaneously join the democratic rival if their luxury is too low (communism should generally produce less luxury, which probably is the case in Freeciv already.) Maybe once Radio is invented, communist cities become harder to govern because they now listen to democratic commercials and start wanting more luxury? This might make for interesting game mechanics.

Another point is democratic units refusing to be bought. Again I don't see how democracy would be special in this regard. I imagine morale has more to do with it. I dare say if communist units could be bribed IRL, Nazi Germany would have bought the entire Red Army in WW2, but it didn't happen. I would think if troops in Freeciv had a morale stat, any troop might be bought after e.g. losing a battle.

These are just some pointers and ideas.

You could test the civ2civ3 ruleset, it's rather different wrt governments. And of course you could copy any ruleset and tweak the government boni + penalties as you like

or example, Freeciv (Civ) maintains that a democratic state doesn't suffer from any corruption. This is utterly unrealistic. Both politics and economy in democratic states suffer a substantial degree of corruption IRL. It is quite common for democratic policymakers to be influenced by lobbyists.

Erm, I believe those IRL examples would all be republics. AFAIK there are no true Democracies, where the government is run by referendum. A Democracy would pretty much lack a Legislative branch, though there would still have to be some form of executive and judicial branches, if only for law enforcement and military.

GriffonSpade wrote:

or example, Freeciv (Civ) maintains that a democratic state doesn't suffer from any corruption. This is utterly unrealistic. Both politics and economy in democratic states suffer a substantial degree of corruption IRL. It is quite common for democratic policymakers to be influenced by lobbyists.

Erm, I believe those IRL examples would all be republics. AFAIK there are no true Democracies, where the government is run by referendum. A Democracy would pretty much lack a Legislative branch, though there would still have to be some form of executive and judicial branches, if only for law enforcement and military.

Problem here being that a direct democracy like that should only be possible a) in the very beginning of the game, when the civilization is small enough (Athenian Democracy), or b) very late in the game (future era), when technology is advanced enough to safely and efficiently put that into effect (100% safe digital voting etc.).

Problem here being that a direct democracy like that should only be possible a) in the very beginning of the game, when the civilization is small enough (Athenian Democracy), or b) very late in the game (future era), when technology is advanced enough to safely and efficiently put that into effect (100% safe digital voting etc.).

Hmm, I won't completely disagree with your points, and 'ancient democracy' probably wouldn't be a good fit for the government either, what with its lack of advanced philosophical concepts. I also wouldn't say that it would need digital voting (Most voting really only needs to be done once or twice a year, though finalizing wording for a law would take something special. Perhaps decided by someone writing it out, and then having it be signed as a petition?). That said, any distant, disconnected cities should have a rather large chance of civil war and breaking away due to cultural drift and such. Could you imagine a direct democracy across the US without at the very least railroads? It'd be a mess! We were barely able to deliver letters before the railroads were set up.

GriffonSpade wrote:

Problem here being that a direct democracy like that should only be possible a) in the very beginning of the game, when the civilization is small enough (Athenian Democracy), or b) very late in the game (future era), when technology is advanced enough to safely and efficiently put that into effect (100% safe digital voting etc.).

Hmm, I won't completely disagree with your points, and 'ancient democracy' probably wouldn't be a good fit for the government either, what with its lack of advanced philosophical concepts. I also wouldn't say that it would need digital voting (Most voting really only needs to be done once or twice a year, though finalizing wording for a law would take something special. Perhaps decided by someone writing it out, and then having it be signed as a petition?). That said, any distant, disconnected cities should have a rather large chance of civil war and breaking away due to cultural drift and such. Could you imagine a direct democracy across the US without at the very least railroads? It'd be a mess! We were barely able to deliver letters before the railroads were set up.

I couldn't imagine you guys running a democracy at all.
Well, if there's only one or two new laws proposed each year to be voted on, that's nice, but I'd assume that in a modern era with a lot of technological advancement and tons of people possibly looking for loopholes in the current laws, a lot of changes would have to be made, forcing citizens to run to the voting office all the time.
But the core problem here from a Freeciv point of view is that in a direct democracy, there wouldn't be a leader controlling everything, and if the player was to embody the will of the people, it's strange that there can still be civil disorder. Fact is, a strictly decentralized government is not possible - not in Freeciv, not in reality. There has to be an authority of some kind proposing laws, ministries, offices, departments or whatever you want to call them filled with highly educated people specializing in a specific field and a bureau handling citizens' petitions and ministries' proposals, deciding on which law to vote on next. Of course, the player could take the role of the entire governmental machinery, kind of taking away the "democracy" part again.
The "deliver letters"/communication part is a moot point though. In Freeciv, you don't need any technology whatsoever to contact and control units and cities on the far side of the world, and there's no delay in doing so. Of course, having something like railroad as a prerequisitefor democracy in the tech tree would still make sense though.

I couldn't imagine you guys running a democracy at all.
Well, if there's only one or two new laws proposed each year to be voted on, that's nice, but I'd assume that in a modern era with a lot of technological advancement and tons of people possibly looking for loopholes in the current laws, a lot of changes would have to be made, forcing citizens to run to the voting office all the time.

Actually, it's more like every voting season would have a few dozen(or more) laws up for vote. Remember, just because executive and judicial branches can't write laws, they can have the power to issue temporary executive orders and interpret existing laws. It's not like the majority of laws even go into effect immediately, they're usually given a year or two grace period to make sure everyone is on the right page and can cease and desist before the law goes into effect.

But the core problem here from a Freeciv point of view is that in a direct democracy, there wouldn't be a leader controlling everything, and if the player was to embody the will of the people, it's strange that there can still be civil disorder. Fact is, a strictly decentralized government is not possible - not in Freeciv, not in reality. There has to be an authority of some kind proposing laws, ministries, offices, departments or whatever you want to call them filled with highly educated people specializing in a specific field and a bureau handling citizens' petitions and ministries' proposals, deciding on which law to vote on next. Of course, the player could take the role of the entire governmental machinery, kind of taking away the "democracy" part again.

The player pretty much just represents the Chief Executives. And every Commanding Officer of every unit. Obviously, in more autocratic and totalitarian governments, that means we pretty much control everything. In more democratic governments, it means we're more just reduced to allocating resources and controlling the military. And note that voting by referendum doesn't mean there are no professionals writing laws: many US states have referenda at municipal, county, and state levels, yet they're still mostly written by professional lawyers. I suppose these people in a democracy might be considered a legislative branch. Again though, even if there's no legislature, there are still executives and judiciaries 'running' the government. There would still be police, fire fighters, prosecutors, defending attorneys, judges, secret service, tax collectors, a treasury, a chief executive, military officers, soldiers, bureaucrats, lobbyists, et cetera. Just no congress, parliament, or (actual) senate.
It does bring up the interesting possibility of democratic governments preventing tax and policy slider reallocations without 'due cause', though.

The "deliver letters"/communication part is a moot point though. In Freeciv, you don't need any technology whatsoever to contact and control units and cities on the far side of the world, and there's no delay in doing so. Of course, having something like railroad as a prerequisite for democracy in the tech tree would still make sense though.

I rather think this qualifies as 'acceptable breaks from reality'...otherwise we'd have to have insanely advanced AI controlling our units capable of being independent of any central knowledge or orders given by the leader. Plus a system to delay information and orders for individual units. However, the inability to communicate over long distance would be part of background 'reality nod' effects, like corruption, city size caps, and such.